Tag Archives: History

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland invited me to research the history of St. Paul’s Church in relationship to chattel slavery, and to present at the Trail of Souls Pilgrimage. I am grateful to Audry Gagnon, a former intern with the Episcopal Service Corps, for her research at the Maryland Historical Society. Thanks also to John Henderson, civil rights attorney and former Sr. Warden, for his research into the story of Reverdy Johnson.

Tobacco

When the Diocese of London founded St. Paul’s Parish in 1692 as an established member of the Church of England, people living within the parish boundaries were taxed forty pounds of tobacco per year, paid to the Church. For the first hundred years of this congregation’s life, tobacco income was the main source of support. The clergy of St. Paul’s were granted “glebe land” to grow tobacco, thus providing for their income. Typically, enslaved people farmed the tobacco. St. Paul’s Church was built on the labor of enslaved people.

Baptisms and Marriages

Beginning in the 1790s, and for the following hundred years, more than one hundred people of African descent were recorded in the parish register as being baptized by the clergy of St. Paul’s. A slave balcony was included in the third church that seated 1700 people, before it burned down in 1854. The parish register lists “slave, mulatto, negro, and free black” names both for baptisms and marriages up until the 1830’s. Presumably, the opening of St. James’ Parish for African Americans, founded in 1824, caused the drop off in baptisms.

Clergy Responsibilities

“Under the wing of St. Paul’s: In 1873, when St. James’ Church had been greatly weakened by withdrawals and other causes, the vestry requested the Rev. Dr. Hodges, rector of St. Paul’s Parish, to assume charge of the spiritualities of the parish. Hence, from then until the end of 1888, the priests in charge of the parish were assistants of the Rev. Dr. Hodges. The last priest furnished by St. Paul’s was a colored clergyman, Father B. W. Timothy.” —St. James Church: History 1824-1949, Anniversary Pamphlet from 1849, page 5.

As part of a diocesan ministry, at the request of the bishop of Maryland, the clergy from St. Paul’s also took on some of the pastoral ministry for the Johns Hopkins Colored Orphan Asylum. There are almost fifty names of girls at the Colored Orphan Asylum who were listed in the register as being baptized in the twenty years that St. Paul’s was in charge of their care.

Abolition

“In 1789, leaders of St. Paul’s Church organized the founding of The Maryland Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and the Relief of Free Negroes and Others Unlawfully held in Bondage. This was the fourth anti-slavery society in the United States and the sixth in the world. Founding members included Judge Samuel Chase, Attorney General Luther Martin, and Dr. George Buchanan, all from St. Paul’s.” —St. Paul’s Parish Baltimore: a chronicle of the Mother Church, by Francis F. Beirne, page 47.

“The manumission of slaves, which a decade before had received stimulus from Dr. George Buchanan and the anti-slavery society, was creating a problem. The freed men found much difficulty adjusting to their new condition for they had virtually nowhere to go. A possible solution which attracted many people was the proposal to establish a nation for them in Africa. Again some members of St. Paul’s took an active interest in the plan. John Eager Howard was vice president of the Colonization Society which was organized on a national scale with headquarters in Washington.” —St. Paul’s Parish Baltimore, page 84.

Reverdy Johnson

In 1931, the children and grandchildren of vestryman Reverdy Johnson (1796-1876) had a brass memorial mounted on a wall in the nave of St Paul’s. Inscribed on the plaque are the words, “lover of the Anglo-Saxon Race, of North and South, of Justice and of Peace.” The life of Reverdy Johnson reflects the fact that Baltimore was caught in the crosshairs of issues swirling around slavery and the Civil War. Johnson epitomizes these complexities, arguing, as an attorney, a pro-slavery position in the ruinous Dred Scott case, but also advocating for the 13th Amendment (ending slavery) a decade later. He favored the Union, and called the Confederates traitors, while also advocating for state autonomy. He condemned slavery and gave up the slaves he inherited, though he campaigned against extending citizenship, equal protection of the law, and voting rights to the freedmen, opposing both the 14th and 15th Amendments. Johnson regularly opposed Lincoln, but also became an ally in the war, ending up as a pallbearer at Lincoln’s funeral.

Isn’t it time that we stopped using the title “Father” for priests? Even though Jesus said, “Call no one Father” (Matthew 23:9), I don’t think we need to use the literal sense of that text as the foundation for this change.

I would start with the baptismal theology of our 1979 Book of Common Prayer. One of the great thrusts of our current Prayer Book is honoring the ministry of the laity. What is most important is that we are all baptized. As baptized members of Christ’s body, we have ministries either as lay or ordained people. So why should priests get a special (and seemingly superior) title? What is meant as a sign of respect towards the clergy seems to reinforce an outmoded hierarchy.

I know a priest who likes to be called Father because “I have worked so hard for this role and I want the respect this vocation deserves.” This is certainly a valid concern in a societal context where all authority figures are getting less respect. My response is that authentic respect flows from who we are and not what we are called. Our pastoral leadership and spiritual presence, and not any special title, will be the real source of a congregation giving us authority.

In addition, with the ordination of women in 1976 we have changed who can be in the priesthood. Is there an equivalent title to “Father” for women? Some women clergy like being called “Mother.” Others can’t stand it. It doesn’t help that “Mother” is also a title used by Roman Catholic nuns. In the Episcopal Church we have both genders ordained. This decision has consequences. We just can’t have one gender with a standard title that does not work for all. This seems like a simple issue of justice. Are men who like the title “Father” willing to let this title go for the sake of our clergy sisters?

Is “Father” really even the best title to describe what a priest does? I remember being a newly ordained 25 year old priest and having an elderly woman in our parish continually calling me “Father.” Do I really function like a father to her? This puts me in the parent role and her in the child position. It can actually be harming the spiritual development of parishioners to be putting them in this infantilizing position.

Furthermore, using the title Father creates the potential for theological confusion. Imagine a priest about to lead the Lord’s Prayer. It is then announced “Father Smith will now lead us in the ‘Our Father.’” Here is a situation where you are calling God “Father” in close connection with calling the priest “Father.” Is this ordained human being really in the same role as the Divine? Unfortunately some people already fall into that misunderstanding. Having a spiritual leader with the same title as the first person of the Trinity is just not a good set up for anyone.

In general I think people should be able to be called whatever they want. However when a title has the potential of getting in the way of the mission of the church, I would hope that people would be willing to make a change. Even if that change requires the sacrifice of a beloved title.

I don’t have the answer to what priests should be called. I do know that whatever we are called it should be the same title for both men and women. I find that it feels great to be a pastoral leader who is on a mutual first name basis with the people in my parish. They seem to like it too. So I propose we stick with the most meaningful names we have, our baptismal names—the names with which we are marked as Christ’s own forever.

Reposted from an article that was published by Episcopal Cafe on September 12, 2013

Friday began with a convention-wide Eucharist, including an inspiring sermon about Pentecost by Bishop Knudsen. Following that, we discussed each of the resolutions brought before us. Resolutions addressing clergy and lay compensation, alcohol use guidelines, diocesan canons, Cathedral Chapter bylaws, and mandatory diocesan training all passed either as presented or with slight modifications.

Also passed was a resolution to establish a relationship with the Episcopal Diocese of Puerto Rico, who had a delegate attend the convention, as well as Mark Stanley’s resolution to have Origen of Alexandria included in the calendar of saints was passed and moves along to be considered at the next General Convention. Way to go Mark!

A resolution to give ten percent of the Diocese’s unrestricted endowment, as an initial reparation for the church’s ties to slavery, to the Union of Black Episcopalians was “committed to diocesan counsel,” which means that it will be further studied and likely reconsidered at a future convention.

The keynote speaker was the Very Reverend Michael Kinman, Dean of Christ Church Cathedral in St. Louis, who preached on themes involving the social justice issues of racial disparity and injustice, current events including Ferguson and the death of Michael Brown, the death of Freddie Gray and the Black Lives Matter movement.

Saturday morning began with Morning Prayer and another business session. Bishop Sutton’s address included a description of his recent three month sabbatical for which he is extremely grateful. Bishop Sutton also had high praise for Bishop Knudsen’s ministry among us and we were reminded that she will retire in 2018. Plans for identifying her successor will need to be considered by the time the next convention convenes in 2017.

Bishop Sutton’s message in his address was a renewed initiative concerning the meaning of love. He talked about how we might go about that in a three step process—Encounter, Engage, and Reconcile. He weaved in a continued commitment to the basics of good worship, music, and mission simultaneously.

While it is easy to focus on just the “business” of the Diocesan Convention, it is inspiring to be reminded that there are many committed people, both clergy and lay, who are passionately endeavoring to spread the love of Christ throughout our diocese. Thanks be to God.

For the first time in my life, I am presenting a resolution to the Diocesan Convention–a resolution on the topic of the early church theologian, Origen of Alexandria. I realize that it is pretty nerdy, but it has been bothering me that such a brilliant man was never canonized as a saint. Many early church scholars, including Henri Crouzel, SJ (Professor of Patristics at the Catholic Institute of Toulouse and the Gregorian University in Rome), have asserted that Origen has been “unjustly branded a heretic”(Oxford Companion to Christian Thought, pg 503). Trying to correct this wrong, I am presenting a Resolution at the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland’s Convention on May 13, 2016 for Origen of Alexandria to be included in the Episcopal Church’s calendar of “saints.”

Born to Christian parents in 185 AD, Origen spent the first part of his career as a teacher in Alexandria, Egypt. During the persecution of Christians by the Roman Emperor Septimius Serverus in Alexandria in 202, in which his father was killed, teenage Origen desired martyrdom but his mother prevented him from leaving the house by hiding his clothes. Because of his Christian faith, Origen chose to lead a strict ascetic life of fasting, prayer, and voluntary poverty. According to the historian Eusebius, Origen supposedly even castrated himself because of his misinterpretation of Matthew 19:12. (Recent scholars have questioned the truth of this story, however, speculating that this may have been just a rumor circulated by his detractors.) In 250 AD, during a later persecution, Origen was imprisoned for being a Christian and cruelly tortured, after which he survived only a few years.

Refusing to deny his beliefs, Origen’s willingness to undergo personal suffering gave witness to his dedication to Christ. Origen, who was renowned for the breadth and depth of his scholarship, wrote influential works in the fields of theology, textual criticism, biblical commentary, preaching, and spirituality.

Hundred of years after the death of Origen, the Emperor Justinian instigated Origen’s condemnation and had many of his works burned. In 553 AD, the Fifth Ecumenical Council at Constantinople seems to have condemned Origin as a heretic. That this council actually condemned him is both “enigmatic and problematic” (Philip Esler, The Early Christian World, Volume 2, pg 262). The Catholic Encyclopedia (volume 11, pg 308) even states that Origen “does not deserve to be ranked among the promoters of heresy.”

Scholars today call Origen “the church’s first systematic theologian” and “the foremost biblical scholar of the early church.” Saint Jerome proclaimed Origen the “greatest teacher of wisdom and knowledge after the apostles.” Yet many of Origen’s works did not survive due to his condemnation several centuries after his death. This needs to be corrected. Some of this later criticism comes from Origen’s wide ranging philosophical speculation at a time when Christian orthodoxy was still forming. It is problematic to label as heresy Origen’s theories about the pre-existence of souls or the Son being inferior to the Father (which he may not have actually claimed) since the church at that time did not yet have official teachings on these matters.

Unfortunately some of the accusations against Origen were actually due to misunderstandings of his writings as well as the attribution of later speculations by his followers to him. Another point of controversy is Origen’s concept of Apokatastasis, that all creatures (even the Devil) could ultimately be reconciled with God. While scholars today debate whether Origen truly taught a version of Universal Salvation, Origen’s emphasis on the patience and enduring mercy of God, rather than on Divine punishment, might be seen in our own day as not heresy but as Good News. The great Anglican historian Henry Chadwick puts it this way, “If orthodoxy were a matter of intention, no theologian could be more orthodox than Origen, none more devoted to the cause of Christian faith.”

Origen is deserving of a place on our liturgical calendar with his rare combination of scholarly genius and a saintly life dedicated to Christ. The next step is a Resolution recommending Origen be included in the next edition of A Great Cloud of Witnesses: A Calendar of Commemorations. Then, on to the General Convention of the Episcopal Church in 2018 to work for final approval from the national church.

I’ve been thinking a great deal about death lately. Not only is it the week of Halloween, but I’ve also recently had more than a few friends suffer through major surgeries, vehicle collisions, and severe illness. And so maybe it’s because of these events and meditations that I’ve also been feeling especially grateful to have such a life- and living-centered faith. For although many focus on the torment and violent death of Christ, it is important to also constantly remind oneself of what it was he was dying for. To my mind, Christ was not simply a sacrifice, but a man who died for his dedication to the love, life, and eternity of the world. The legacy of Jesus then, for me, has always been a life-centered faith. A faith where the mysterious God empowers us to conquer death, where all things are interconnected and eternal rather than isolated, linear, and full of endings.

Despite this legacy, however, the Christian Church, like many religions, has left in its wake a tremendously bloody history thanks to the failings, fears, and prejudices of its practitioners over the centuries: persecution of countless men and women as witches, the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, and many other instances of war, terrorism, conquest, and “cleansing.”

As Halloween is nearly upon us, it strikes me as a strangely ideal time to pause and give a moment of remembrance to those who have suffered and to those who continue to suffer at the hands of people who claim to be acting in the name and service of God.

“The Spirit comes gently and makes himself known by his fragrance. He is not felt as a burden for God is light, very light. Rays of light and knowledge stream before him as the Spirit approaches. The Spirit comes with the tenderness of a true friend to save, to heal, to teach, to counsel, to strengthen, and to console.”

—St. Cyril of Jerusalem

In Greek Orthodox services, priests often punctuate their actions with the (sung) declaration:

This is wisdom; let us be attentive.

And while I’ve never been Greek Orthodox myself, this phrase has always struck me as something at once tremendously useful and profound. After all, it isn’t often when Wisdom is pinpointed and called out for us in everyday life.

Last Wednesday evening (3/18), my husband, Evan, and I joined fellow Old St. Paul’s member Steve Tollefson to participate in a celebration of The Feast of St. Cyril of Jerusalem at The Church of the Redemption (led by The Reverend Jim Perra, former member of Old St. Paul’s). And, reflecting back on it now, I feel as though the entire night could’ve been punctuated with a great big exclamation point: THIS IS WISDOM; LET US BE ATTENTIVE. I’m not normally one who keeps quiet in a conversation, but in this group, I found that all I wanted to do was be attentive and listen.

First, we learned some of the history of St. Cyril, born in Jerusalem around 315 and made bishop of Jerusalem in (approx.) 349. As the bishop of Jerusalem, Cyril had a particular influence on the early liturgical forms of Holy Week for Christians, as thousands of believers made their annual pilgrimage there. Because of this and how those believers then returned home to spread news and practice of these liturgical forms, many of these decisions and practices continue on as our Christian inheritance today (such as the palms of Palm Sunday, for example). Cyril also had an important hand in helping to shape and vote on our Nicene Creed.

This history led us into a terrific discussion regarding not only the Nicene Creed but the possibilities and beauties of other Christian creeds, including one I’d never heard of before: the Maasai Creed.

And there’s a lot to appreciate about the Maasai Creed. For example, consider the phrase: “We believe that God made good his promise by sending his son, Jesus Christ, a man in the flesh, a Jew by tribe, born poor in a little village, who left his home and was always on safari doing good, curing people by the power of God, teaching about God and man, showing that the meaning of religion is love.”

One of my personal favorite elements, however, is the line: “live the rules of love,” as in, “All who have faith in him [Christ] must…live the rules of love….”

This is wisdom. Let us be attentive.

It makes me wonder, if we were to create a creed that “attempted to express the essentials of the Christian faith within the [Baltimore] culture,” what would it look like?

—Katherine Mead-Brewer

**A great big Thank You to The Church of the Redemption, Steve Tollefson, and to The Reverend Jim Perra. And a special thanks to 4th Century Spanish nun, Egeria, without whose journal we would not know near as much regarding the practices of those original liturgical Holy Week practices as we do today.

Several years ago we started having a baby boom in our church, so we decided we wanted to create a “Soft Space” for families where they would feel comfortable and safe worshiping in our sanctuary. We saw the need to provide childproofed space for babies to roll around and play on the floor while their parents were in worship. We proposed to remove just one pew so that an enlarged space could be equipped with a super soft carpet, stuffed animals, and a pew door.

The initial proposal was well received in general, but a member of our vestry became upset at the thought of us doing anything to change our historic building. To address this person’s concerns, an architect was consulted, and a variety of locations were considered for the new Soft Space so that it might be low profile while offering easy access to exits and bathrooms. After a great deal of discussion, vestry members were polled. In the end, there was overwhelming support to move forward with the creation of a Soft Space that would provide for the practical needs of families, and also serve as a symbol of our church’s welcome of young children. Soon after it was completed, a parishioner gifted the Church with an enormous teddy bear to welcome families into the new Soft Space.

Fast forward five years, and we now have added a second Soft Space and dozens more children to our membership. In fact, we are already thinking of adding one or two more Soft Spaces to accommodate the many new families who have joined our Church. At a recent newcomer event, we asked people to share their first impressions of our Church. One young woman said, “At my wedding a few months ago, my guests were delighted to see the space for children with the huge teddy bear. My first impression was that this Church was trying to be an inclusive community.”

It’s true that, for the past decade, we have been working to build the kind of Christian community where people can come and feel accepted for who they are, nurtured through friendship, and loved unconditionally by God. We set out to create a Soft Space for families, and, in the process, we have created a whole Christian community that is one big soft space for everyone who enters our doors. Through Forums and workshops, we have worked on ourselves, asking, “How can we relate to people in ways that are open, civil, kind, and compassionate?” I could not be more proud of the members of our Christian community for their efforts at following in the footsteps of Jesus.

I wonder what more we could do to have our Church serve as a soft space for the people of downtown Baltimore, where we are surrounded by hardscape. How could we provide a soft space during the week for those who are bustling to and from their jobs downtown? What ministries might we develop to provide more of a soft space for the homeless people who sleep on our front portico most nights? Our Church community seeks to offer holy hospitality, and we do a great job of that on Sundays, but still, I wonder what more we could do for folks on weekdays.